Black Dogs Part One: The House of Diamond by Ursula Vernon

Author:Ursula Vernon [Vernon, Ursula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: amazon, epub
Amazon: B07BWB5J5S
Goodreads: 39707833
Publisher: Sofawolf Press, Inc.
Published: 2007-02-28T22:00:00+00:00

Her body still aching from Sinai’s latest lesson, Lyra cleaned her sword with cinnamon-scented oil, and what felt like the last dregs of strength, then staggered down to the nearby pond.

She had one arm out of her tunic when Trent cleared his throat apologetically.

“Sonuvabitch,” muttered Lyra, hastily straightening her clothes. Trent started to laugh and turned it into a polite cough.

“I’m sorry,” he said contritely. “I’ll go in a moment, but—look over there.”

“Hmm?” She joined him on a convenient log and followed his hand. “What—sweet goddess...!”

Deathwatch herons stand some twelve feet tall at the crown, a deep rusty crimson with black crests and lantern-yellow eyes. They are less common than smaller herons and egrets, often hunted for their plumage, and were a rare, shy sight. One was picking its slow, elegant way across the pond sixty feet away, each step breaking the surface into rings of mirrored water.

Lyra inhaled sharply, then let it out slowly. “Oh, my...”

It was beautiful. Lyra had seen one once before, near her father’s keep. His men had hunted it with nets and spears, but it had killed one with its massive beak and escaped in a flurry of savage red wings.

The sword-like beak was currently digging through the mud for snails.

“Are—are they dangerous?” she asked quietly.

“Everything’s dangerous,” said Trent absently, still watching the heron. He glanced over at her and smiled briefly. “No. Not if you don’t provoke them, usually. I wouldn’t make a great deal of noise.”

“My father tried to hunt one once,” she mused. “Not the brightest idea he ever had.” She smiled, half a grimace, at the memory. “Like his idea to stock the fishpond with sturgeon.”

Trent lifted an eyebrow at that. “You’re kidding.”

“No. He’s always doing thi—”

She stopped. “Was. Was doing.”

Homesickness seized her by the throat so suddenly and unexpectedly that she choked. Her temples ached with the tight, burning sensation of unshed tears.

Trent patted her awkwardly on the shoulder.

“Sorry,” she said, when she could speak again. “I’m sorry. I don’t—don’t usually get homesick.”

“A home is a hard thing to lose,” offered Trent.

“It’s not really the place,” said Lyra, staring at her hands. “It wasn’t much. But I don’t have a home at all. We’ll leave this place, and go on tomorrow, and the next day, and there’s no place that I think ‘someday I’ll come home here.’ I don’t have anywhere to go except to wander.” She laughed weakly. “And if it wasn’t for Sadrao, and now Sinai, I wouldn’t even have a direction to wander in.”

Trent sighed and tossed a pebble at the water. “I know how you feel. Or I would like to know how it feels. I am only pulled in one direction and another, on Vade’s leash, or Sinai’s. Sometimes I would like a few moments only to rest.” He looked over at the heron, which was standing like a statue of scarlet marble. “But I do not miss Ironspine. It was never a home.”

Lyra licked her lips, then asked a question she had been wanting to ask for several weeks.

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